For the U.S. Army, transformation is about a family of vehicles
called "Future Combat System." For the Navy, it's about a
fleet of small fighting vessels named "Littoral Combat Ships."

The Navy envisions LCS operating close to enemy shores, clearing
mines, chasing diesel submarines and potential terrorists, and ferrying
special-operations forces. It will travel at speeds of up to 50 knots.
At least two helicopters or unmanned aircraft will operate from the LCS
deck.

Contractor proposals for LCS are due April 14. By August or
September, the Navy plans to select up to three industry teams, each of
whom will receive a $10 million contract for a seven-month design phase.

The program is on a fast-track schedule. The Navy wants a ship in
the water by 2007, a goal that some observers believe is unrealistic.
Whoever wins the design competition will have to deliver two Flight 0
ships--one by fiscal year 2005 and the other by 2006, said Jim Heller,
the LCS program manager. Those two ships may not be of the same
hullform, he said.

Beyond Flight 0, the picture gets murky. Even though the chief of
naval operations Adm. Vernon Clark has said the Navy could buy up to 60
ships, industry sources expressed concern about an acquisition strategy
that calls for the award of only two ships, without specifying whether
the winner of Flight 0 will be guaranteed any subsequent orders for
Flight 1, for example.

The Defense Department's budget has $4 billion for LCS between
2004 and 2009--one ship in 2005, one in 2006, three in 2008 and four in
2009.

Each LCS hull must cost no more than $220 million, in 2005 dollars.
The "objective cost," the price the Navy wishes for, is $150
million.

That cost estimate, however, may be premature, said Cynthia L.
Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association.
"It's too early to know the exact cost until the Navy
identifies all the requirements," she said. "They put the
number out as a target," but the price could change, once the
specifications are refined further.

Navy officials have described the LCS as a member of a futuristic
family of ships that includes the DDX land-attack destroyer and the CGX next-generation guided-missile cruiser. They stressed that by no means
should the LCS be considered a replacement for the DDX, as critics have
speculated. "The operational concepts for DDX and LCS, although
complementary; are fairly different," said Rear Adm. Charles
Hamilton, program executive officer for Navy ships. The DDX, equipped
with heavy 6-inch guns, is for "precision volume fire to ranges in
excess of any system we have currently in the fleer," Hamilton said
in an interview. Meanwhile, "LCS has to take a variety of mission
packages, integrate them at much higher speeds, in a smaller hull. You
cannot simultaneously solve the speed equation and get a big gun."

The size of the LCS is expected to be about 3,000 tons--compared to
12,000 tons for a destroyer. The crew on the LCS would not exceed 40
sailors. A destroyer operates with a crew of at least 300.

The industry's powerhouses already have lined up teams for the
LCS competition, although corporate alliances still may shift before the
program reaches the next phase.

The LCS contractor teams include some of the same firms currently
participating in the DDX program.

So far, the following competitors have announced they will submit
proposals:

* Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems heads
a team that includes Gibbs & Cox, Bollinger Shipyards and Marinette
Marine. Lockheed originally had proposed a catamaran hullform, but later
announced that the team was keeping its options open.

* General Dynamics Bath Iron Works is teamed with Austal USA, the
Boeing Co., BAE Systems and Maritime Applied Physics Corp. The GD ream
is proposing a trimaran (3-hull) design.

* John J. McMullen Associates leads a ream that is offering a fast
missile patrol boat, the Skjold (a Norwegian word that means
"shield"), developed by Umoe Mandal. Other firms in this group
include Raytheon Co., Delex and Atlantic Marine. The Skjold is a
surface-effects ship, combining the features of hovercraft and catamaran
hull designs.

* Northrop Grumman heads the only ream proposing a monohull ship,
the Visby, designed by Kockums, a Swedish firm. The Visby is made of
advanced composite materials and features an angular designed that
reduces the radar signature, according to Northrop Grumman.

Another potential competitor is Textron Systems Marine and Land,
makers of the Marine Corps landing craft air cushion (LCAC).

LCS contenders such as Raytheon and Northrop Grumman plan to
capitalize on their experience in the DDX program, officials said.
Raytheon, for example, may apply to LCS the integrated undersea warfare
system and the command-and-control technologies it developed for DDX and
the amphibious assault ship LPD-17, said Jack Cronin, Raytheon vice
president for DDX.

A John J. McMullen official who did nor want to be quoted by name
said that any technology transfer from DDX will focus on manning,
survivability, weapons and electronics.

Another program tied to LCS is the Coast Guard Deepwater, an
umbrella modernization effort that will replace aging cutters, patrol
vessels and aircraft. Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are teamed as
prime contractors for Deepwater. Both Navy and Coast Guard officials
have stressed that the LCS and the Deepwater program were intrinsically
tied, because the Coast Guard could not afford to develop its own ships
and would rather piggyback on the Navy investment.

Lockheed Martin officials, meanwhile, are trying to distance their
LCS proposal from Deepwater. Industry sources said the obvious reason
for that is that Lockheed's Deepwater partner, Northrop Grumman,
also is its most formidable rival in the LCS program.

During a news conference, Lockheed Martin NE&SS President Fred
Moosally, said he is "not sure what the tie is" between LCS
and Deepwater. Commonality could be found in the command-and-control
networks or the unmanned vehicles operating off the ships, he said. But
Moosally said he did not "see a match" when it comes to the
ship hulls.

Navy turns USS Radford into DDX test ship.

The 32-year-old USS Radford last month left active service and
became a technology test platform for the Navy's next-generation
surface combatant, the DDX.

The Spruance-class Radford destroyer was decommissioned in Norfolk,
Va., and subsequently towed to the Navy's inactive ships
maintenance office. It soon will be heading south, to the Northrop
Grumman Ingalls shipyard, in Pascagoula, Miss., where it will be
converted into a so-called "DDX testbed."

Those plans may change, however, if it turns out that the Radford
is in worse condition than anticipated, said a Navy spokesman. "As
other DD 963-class ships are decommissioned prior to towing Radford to
Northrop Grumman Ship System Ingalls, the Navy may elect to designate a
different ship as the DDX test ship, depending on the ship's
material conditions or other cost factors," said the spokesman.

Concerns about the condition of the Radford are warranted, given
the extensive damage the ship suffered in 1999, when it collided with a
30,000-ton container ship off the cost of Virginia Beach. A pie-shaped
gash, penetrating into the centerline of the Radford, left a hole from
the deck to the waterline, toppled its 5-inch 54-caliber gun and damaged
Tomahawk cruise missile tubes. The repairs cost nearly $33 million.

The contractor responsible for the DDX design, Northrop Grumman
Corp., proposed the notion of having a real ship as a testbed for DDX,
to give the Navy an opportunity to see advanced technologies perform at
sea, rather than the laboratory.

Among the technologies to be tested aboard the Radford is an
integrated power system, a composite deckhouse with apertures and a
dualband radar. The power system could involve significant engineering
work A turbo-electric propulsion system will replace the gear reduction
equipment

It will take at least a year to convert the Radford into a test
ship, the Navy said. At-sea testing will take place in the Gulf of
Mexico and Virginia Gapes operating areas. Among the organizations
expected to participate in the testing are the Atlantic Undersea Test
and Evaluation Center Range, based in the Bahamas; Lambert's Point
Range, in Norfolk, Va., and Wallops Island Range, on the eastern
Virginia shore.

The DD-968 was named after Admiral Arthur W. Radford, who served in
World War I, World War II and the Korean War; and was chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1953 to 1957.

This will not be the first time the Radford was used as a test
ship. Since 1998, the destroyer served as the testbed for the
Navy's advanced enclosed mast sensor system, or AEMS. This was the
Navy's first-ever advanced hybrid composite structure.

The AEMS is a 93-foot high, hexagonal structure, 35 feet in
diameter, enclosing radar, major antennas and other sensitive equipment
to protect them from the weather, The Navy was trying to demonstrate
that the mast can help lessen maintenance and repairs on the ship, as
well as reduce the radar signature.

The DDX design will not be completed until 2005, at the earliest.
The ship will have a 6-inch gun that will fire satellite-guided
projectiles out to 100 nautical miles inland.

In a highly contested competition two years ago, Northrop
Grumman--partnered with the Raytheon Co.--beat an industry team led by
General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin.

Even though it was on the losing team, Lockheed Martin recently
joined the DDX program for the system design phase, as a subcontractor
to Raytheon. A Lockheed Martin spokesman said the company will
participate in areas such as "total ship systems rngineering
command and control, integrated undersea warfare and phased array
rader."

Specifically, Lockheed Martin will become the "system
engineering deputy and integrated undersea warfare deputy to
Raytheon," said the spokesman. The company will provide mine
warfare arrays, will held design displays and networks. In the area of
phased-array radar, Lockheed Martin will supply the L-band volume search
radar antenna.

COPYRIGHT 2003 National Defense Industrial Association
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.